The air in the Helix’s cargo bay howls as it is rapidly sucked into space through the open door. Shane quickly teleports himself to the door controls and slams his hand down on the button. The doors slowly begin to slide shut, but in that time, the vacuum of space continues to pull at the crew.

H magnetizes his feet to the ground, but the others do not have that luxury. Morgan slowly slides toward the doors, but she manages to keep her feet planted. Dmitri and Alex are not as fortunate. Both of them are ripped off their feet and begin to fly toward the open doors. Alex screams as she is nearly sucked right out into space. Luckily for her, she slams right into Leviathan who is much too large to fit through the partially closed door. Dmitri, however, does not get the same cushioned landing, and crashes hard into the metal door just before it closes.

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“Get to the bridge!” Shane shouts.

The crew runs to the bridge, only to find their pilot lying in a pool of blood. “Minerva!” Morgan cries out in dismay as she runs to the pilot’s side. “Get MARIA here now!” Due to Minerva’s condition, it’s crucial that she be stabilized immediately. A small pin prick for her could lead to her bleeding to death.

“I’ve got a better idea!” Shane shouts as he runs up to them. The three vanish from sight as Shane uses his connection to Giratina to quickly bring them down to the med bay.

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Shane reappears on the bridge a few moments later. “H, get down to the med bay and help Morgan! Minerva’s in really bad shape!” He shouts as he runs for the pilot’s seat. “Alex, help me land this ship!”

“Got it!” the girl responds. Alex quickly jumps into the co-pilot’s seat and looks around at the controls. “Uh… okay, I have no idea what I’m doing!”

“Honestly, neither do I!” Shane responds. “Let’s just try to get down there in one piece!”

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The two begin steering the Helix toward the planet, but not very smoothly. The entire ship rumbles as it turns. “C’mon…” Alex groans as she wrestles with the controls. Once the two get the ship pointed in the right direction, the ride begins to smooth out, but neither is prepared for a landing.

“Dmitri!” Shane yells. “Send out an SOS!”

The Romanov runs for the comms and manages to sound out the distress beacon. A moment later, a man appears on the viewscreen. “This is Harmonia orbital control,” he says. “We’ve picked up your distress signal.”

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“Our pilot’s been stabbed and we’re going to crash!” Shane shouts at the man. “None of us know how to fly a ship!”

“Well, you’re no help!” Shane replies. He and Alex continue to fight with the controls as the Helix breaks through Harmonia’s atmosphere. Shane finds the button to extend the land flaps, allowing him to slow the ship’s descent a bit.

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“You’re not at-” the man tries to tell them. “Eh, whatever… Just, uh… There’s an emergency landing strip near your position. Try to land there.” A set of coordinates springs up on the console.

Shane and Alex manage to steer the Helix toward the the landing strip and a squadron of ships flies past in the opposite direction. They launch a series of magnetic cables at the crashing ship, then crank their engines to maximum to slow its descent.

“Brace for impact!” Shane broadcasts over comms.

The Helix rumbles as it touches down, then slowly grinds to a halt.

While Morgan, MARIA, and H managed to just barely stabilize Minerva, she is still in very critical condition. With the Helix now on the ground, the crew calls for a med team. The paramedics quickly board the ship and whisk Minerva off to a hospital. Morgan watches with a worried look on her face as the paramedics fly the pilot away. It is very possible that she might not survive.

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The crew reassembles back on the bridge to plan their next move, just in time to see an incoming call from Arlon Jett. Shane accepts the call, and the Red Suns’ leader appears on the viewscreen. “I picked up your distress call,” he informs them. “I wasn’t able to get through until now. Everything all right?”

“We’ve had a day…” Shane tells him with a large sigh. “Have you heard of a person named Meta?”

“I can’t say that I have, mate,” Arlon tells him

“She was a young woman who was working with Aarn Hondo,” Morgan explains. “She betrayed us.”

“Yeah… And, judging by how long it’s taking us to deal with all the landing procedures, it’s looking like she might get away.”

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“Well, lucky for you lot, the Red Suns just happen to have a base here on Harmonia. I can use all my resources to track down this Meta for you.”

“Thanks for the help, Arlon,” Shane tells him.

“Don’t mention it, mate. Send me the details.”

Shane presses a few buttons on the console and transmits all the crew’s information on Meta. “I will warn you, though,” he adds. “When you find her, do not trust anything she says.”

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“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll let you know when I have something.”

While the crew waits on Arlon to track down Meta, Morgan insists that they head to a store a pick up some weapons. She looks up the location of the nearest weapon shop, which is not that hard to do on an Alliance planet like Harmonia, then the crew takes a skycab over.

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“Hello, and welcome to Carl’s Weapons Emporium!” the shop owner greets them as they enter. “My name is Carl. How may I help you?”

“I want a flamethrower,” Morgan tells him without hesitation.

“A fine choice,” Carl tells her. He points to a nearby shelf full of flamethrowers. “That’ll be twelve-thousand-six-hundred credits.”

“We also have a sale on plasma knives, if that interests you at all.” He points to a display case displaying a short holo-clip showing off how plasma knives work. “Only three-thousand credits.”

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“Oh, cool!” Alex exclaims. “I want one!”

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” Morgan says cautiously.

“But everyone else has a weapon!” Alex protests. “I should have one too, just in case.”

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“Let the young lady buy one,” Carl says, rubbing his hands together. “She does raise a good point.”

“Alright,” Morgan agrees.

“Yay!” Alex excitedly pays for a knife, then clips it onto her belt.

“Thank you for doing business with us,” Carl says as the crew exits the shop.

As they return to the skycab, the crew receives a message from Arlon on their Pokedexes displaying a set of coordinates and the words found crash site.

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“Alright, here’s the situation,” Arlon informs the crew as they approach. “I’ve got my men fanning out from here, trying to cover as much ground as possible. We know she only crashed here a few hours ago, so she couldn’t have gone too far.”

“You may be underestimating her abilities,” Shane points out. “I think I have an idea.”

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“Oh?”

“Meta sent us a message before she bailed from the Helix. What if we tried replying, and sending me as an attachment?”

“Oh my God, you’re a genius!” Alex blurts out.

“That’s a solid plan, mate,” Arlon agrees. “Alright, let’s sync up our comm links. As soon as you get to the other side, let us know where you are. We’ll take my air-car and try to get to you as soon as possible.” He nods toward his vehicle parked a short ways away.

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“Shane, hop in my Pokedex and we’ll figure out how to send you,” Morgan adds.

“Right.” Shane touches Morgan’s Dex, and jumps inside. The two spend several moments figuring out how to attach Shane to the file, then Morgan sends it off with a message to Meta reading We’ll get you, you little bitch.

Shane finds himself in an unfamiliar Pokedex architecture. His initial idea is to just ping the location to his crewmates, but he finds the GPS is disabled. Of course she would have disabled that, Shane thinks. He jumps out of the Pokedex and stands face-to-face with Meta on a busy walkway near a mag-train station. The hacker immediately throws the device against a well, shattering it, then pulls out another.

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“Guys, I’m sending you my location!” Shane says over the comms as he pulls out his own Pokedex and sends his coordinates.

“We’re on our way, mate,” Arlon’s voice replies. “Try to slow her down as much as possible.”

Shane puts his Dex away, then releases his Delphox. Meta quickly responds by retreating backwards and releasing a Magnezone.

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“G.W.Y.N., use Mystical Fire!” Shane commands his Pokemon. He then drops himself into warp space as the Delphox waves his wand and summons a ball of fire, which he then casts at the Magnezone.

The Magnet Area Pokemon shrugs off the hit and begins charging up to attack. “Magneto: Zap Cannon!” Meta commands it. The Magnezone fires off a giant blast of electrical energy at G.W.Y.N., immobilizing him. Meta and her Pokemon then continue moving back, in the direction of the mag-train station. “Hit it again!” Magneto fires off another powerful Zap Cannon attack, taking Shane’s Pokemon out.

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Shane drops himself out of warp space and takes a swipe at the Magnezone with his marked hand, putting a slight dent in the metal being’s outer shell. “Magneto: Iron Defense!” Meta commands in response. As the Pokemon builds its defenses up, Shane uses his glitch powers to snatch them away.

“Now, Zap Cannon!” Meta commands. The Magnezone fires off another blast of electricity, this time targeting Shane, but, due to the close range, he is easily able to dodge out of the way. Shane then reaches for another Pokeball and releases his Cofagrigus.

“V.O.I.D., use Shadow Ball!” Shane commands his newly released Pokemon. The Cofagrigus builds up a ball of shadowy energy and slams it close-range into Meta’s Magnezone, draining some energy out of it.

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Meta and her Pokemon keep moving toward the mag-train station, desperate to escape. They round a corner and head directly for the building with Shane and V.O.I.D. close behind. “Zap Cannon!” Meta commands. “And again!” she shouts as Magneto fires off its attack. The Magnezone immediately shoots off a follow up attack. Both shots collide with Shane’s Cofagrigus, delivering a pretty significant blow.

Just then, the mag-train arrives and begins pulling into the station. Meta hops on her Magnezone’s back and nudges it toward the train. It magnetizes to the side of the train, then Meta whips out her Pokedex. She quickly hacks into the train’s systems, and it begins picking up speed instead of slowing down to a halt. Oh no, you don’t, Shane thinks as the hacker rapidly glides away on the train. He drops himself into warp space once more so that he can catch back up with her. Shane appears right next to Meta on her Pokemon’s back and clocks the hacker in the face with his marked hand, nearly knocking her off.

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The rush hour sky traffic of Harmonia whizzes past on all sides as Arlon weaves the air-car through the lanes as fast as possible. “Damn this bloody traffic!” he shouts as he narrowly avoids colliding with another vehicle.

“There they are!” Morgan shouts, spotting the flashes of Shane and Meta’s Pokemon going at it on an elevated walkway.

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“I see them,” Arlon says, looking where she is pointing. He dives the air-car down and swoops over the walkway. “Carmen, take the controls!” the Red Suns’ leader orders his subordinate in the passenger seat. Arlon climbs out onto the outside of the air-car as the alliance mercenary shifts herself into the driver’s seat. He then turns to the Helix crew in the back. “Let’s do this.”

As the air-car passes over the walkway, Arlon and the crew scramble out of the vehicle and start running toward the fight. “We’re here!” Arlon shouts over the comms. “Which way?”

“You got it, boss.” The air-car whirrs away as Carmen steers it after the mag-train.

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“The rest of you, on me,” Arlon adds as he pulls out a Pokeball. He releases his Hydreigon and leaps onto her back. “Hydra, full speed ahead!” The rest of the crew throw out their own Pokemon and run after him.

H rushes forward, then springs off his belly-pogo, launching himself high into the air. He magnetizes himself to the side of the train and begins running forward toward Shane and Meta.

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“Dark Pulse!” Arlon commands his Hydreigon as she closes in on the train with her powerful set of six wings. The Brutal Pokemon fires off a focused beam of darkness from her main mouth at Meta’s Magnezone, dealing a nasty hit.

The rest of the crew and their Pokemon run to keep up, but are unable to get in range to attack. However, Morgan’s Pikachu bolts forward at lightning speed.

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Back on the train, Shane and Meta continue to trade blows. “Magneto: Magnet Bomb!” Meta commands her Pokemon. The Magnezone shakes violently and fires a bunch of magnets at Shane, but he manages to stay on its back and absorb the hits.

“That’s how you wanna play, huh?” Shane taunts Meta. He releases his grip on the Magnezone and falls away from the train. He then triggers his powers, and swaps positions with the Pokemon. With nothing left supporting her, Meta begins to fall. Shane grabs hold of her and pushes her down just before they hit the ground, breaking his fall.

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“Time to finish this,” Arlon says as he and his Hydreigon close in. “Hydra, use Heat Wave!” The Pokemon swoops in at Meta’s Magnezone, fire streaming out of all three of her mouths. The Pokemon collide in a massive explosion of fire, launching the Magnezone straight into the ground and embedding it in the walkway.

“Because he put a bomb in me,” Meta answers, pointing to her head. “Set to explode one week from now if I don’t return to I. And, if I return empty handed, he’ll blow it anyway.”

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“That’s terrible!” Alex gasps.

“Yup…” Meta responds. She seems quite frustrated by the situation.

“Well, she’s not lying,” H observes. “I just took an x-ray of her head. There’s a nasty piece of work in there.”

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“I say we just let her die,” Morgan says coldly.

“What about my Kadabra?” Dmitri protests.

“Well, just grab your Pokemon, and then we can kill her,” Morgan answers.

Dmitri runs over and pats Meta down. He quickly finds his Kadabra’s Pokeball, then backs away. Morgan aims her flamethrower at Meta and prepares to pull the trigger, but Alex steps between them and throws her arms up.

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“Don’t!” the girl shouts.

“Alex, move,” Morgan responds coldly.

“No!”

“She lied to us. If we let her live, she’ll just go back to I.”

“He put a bomb in her head! We have to help her!”

“She could have told us before and she didn’t! She wanted to betray us!”

“Because people will totally trust you if you go around saying ‘I have a bomb in my head that will explode if I don’t betray you,’” H cuts in. “People lie.”

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“Like you,” Alex comments.

“Exactly,” H responds. “Thank you.”

“I still don’t trust her,” Morgan says angrily. “What do you suggest we do with her, then?”

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“We find a way to make her trustworthy, and then use her,” H replies. “We don’t have to remove the bomb, we just need to reprogram it, and then we have an incredibly great asset who is capable of infiltrating our amazing security.”

“No!” Alex protests. “We have to take it out! No one should ever be subjected to that!”

“As much as I agree with you, I really don’t think this thing can be removed without killing me,” Meta speaks up.

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“Trust me, luv, we’ve got the resources to make it happen,” Arlon assures her. “You should let us help you because, from what I’ve heard about this I character, he’s just going to kill you once he gets what he wants anyway.”

“I was under the impression that he was looking for an…” Meta pauses for a moment as she looks for the right word. “An assistant. I figured my odds of survival were higher if I returned to him successful than if I had to rely on someone else to remove this fucking thing.” She points to her head again.

“And that’s a great idea,” H tells her. “But you’re looking at the clone of the man who put that bomb in your brain.”

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“Yes, and seeing as how door number one is now closed, I guess I’ll need your help if I don’t want to die.”

“Alright then,” Arlon says. “Let’s head back to base and get this taken care of.”

Back aboard the Helix, now parked outside the Red Suns’ base on Harmonia, the team gathers in the med bay. While waiting for preparations to be completed, the crew tries to get a better grasp of the situation.

“I know I’m not in a position to make demands or terms,” Meta interrupts. “But I don’t want anything else going in my head.”

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“We’ll make sure H doesn’t try anything,” Morgan assures her.

“Alright then,” Arlon says. “Shall we get started?”

“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” Armstrong says as the three specialists examine Meta’s now-exposed brain.

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Strapped into the ever-so-slightly inclined operating table, her eyes are glued to the viewscreen in front of her; she had been hesitant to watch the operation, but this is her mind and she has to be sure they aren’t messing it up. She needs to be conscious during the procedure anyway, and had decided she was better off in the loop than out of it.

“And I thought warp bomb was fancy,” Kiril breathes with admiration as he takes a closer look at the explosives wired to Meta’s brain.

“This is a very nasty piece of work,” Armstrong agrees. “It’s wired directly into several nerves. One false move and we’ll all be blown to pieces.”

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Original Image source could not be found

“This is very cruel design,” Kiril responds. “Though, elegant.”

“So, shutting off her brain would be a bad idea,” H determines.

“Yes,” Armstrong agrees. “We have no way of knowing what sort of brain activity could trigger this. I don’t think we should attempt to remove it, but, instead, just focus on disabling it so that it can no longer harm her.”

“Oh, that cyber-weapon.” Meta recalls hearing about it from I when she was imprisoned. “You have that?”

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“Yup,” Shane tells her.

“We stole it,” Dmitri adds.

“I still want that when this is all over,” Meta tells them.

“Sorry, luv, the device stays with us,” Arlon tells her. “But now’s not the time to discuss this.”

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“Yes,” H agrees. “As I was saying, we can use that device to disable the computerized components of this bomb.”

“Alright, mate,” Arlon agrees. “I’ll pop over to the Corsair and fetch it.”

Once Arlon returns with the cyber-weapon, the team returns to work. It’s a long a grueling process, but they slowly work through it. Using the device, H is able to identify all the triggers, twelve in total. The team then locates the node associated with each trigger

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“Let’s focus on this one first,” Armstrong says to the others, pointing to one of the nodes.

“Right,” H agrees. He lowers his ion scalpel and successfully disconnects the node.

“Now for the explosive,” Kiril says. Once H removes his ion scalpel, Kiril begins drilling in with his microlaser to get at the explosive contained within the node. He then expertly severs the connection and removes the explosive.

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They move onto the second piece, only this time Kiril pulses the microlaser a fraction too high, and the node emits a light beep. He immediately switches off the microlaser and jumps back, while Meta shuts her eyes.

The room is dead silent for a long time before the node returns to its inert state. Carefully, Kiril recalibrates the microlaser, then pulses the connections around the explosive with short bursts, before safely extracting it.

“Please…” Meta begins, her voice rising slightly. “Be… more… careful.” She tries to control her breathing.

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The team continues working, and successfully disarms nine more nodes without incident over the next several hours. However, each grueling moment is still as intense as the one before. After what seems like ages, they finally have just one more node remaining, linked with a part of the brain Armstrong identifies as being related to sleep.

H begins to work on the final connection, touching the ion scalpel to the node. It connects, but, all of a sudden, his fingers slip! The blade is still in contact with the wire, but it’s two millimeters off of where it should be. “This doesn’t look good,” Armstrong observes, as the node begins to light up.

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“Do not move even single muscle!” Kiril stresses. H freezes as Meta holds her breath.

“You said this trigger is connected a part of the brain related to sleep, yes?” H asks Armstrong, his grip tightening on the ion scalpel.

“Yes,” the doctor answers.

“Then let’s just try putting her to sleep,” H suggests.

“That could kill her,” Kiril replies. “And us.”

“Well, if we just stand around talking, then we’re all going to die anyway,” H counters. There is almost as much sweat on his hand now as there is on Meta’s face. “Let’s just try it. Dmitri, get over here!”

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Using his abilities, Dmitri quickly puts Meta to sleep. The four of them wince for a moment, but the node simply stops flashing. H then quickly severs the final connection. As the cyborg takes his ion scalpel off the now darkened node, he sighs heavily in relief.

“That was close one,” Kiril comments. “Now, I can remove the explosive.” With just a bit more work, the Red Suns’ explosives expert manages to remove the final volatile component of the bomb, leaving behind just a useless hunk of metal.

“That should do it,” Armstrong comments. “We cannot remove anymore, but this bomb can no longer kill her.”

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Meta awakens in the med bay several hours later. “How are you feeling?” Armstrong asks her as she slowly comes to.

“Did you get it out?” the hacker asks him.

“All the dangerous parts, yes,” the doctor answers. “We couldn’t remove some of the actual hardware, but the explosives were disabled and removed.”

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“If you don’t mind, I would like a video log of the whole procedure to review later,” Meta tells those gathered around the table. “Particularly the part when I was asleep.”

“I recorded the whole thing with my cyber eyes,” H informs her.

“It’s not an ideal source, but it will do. I can’t be sure that he didn’t tamper with it, but if it’s the only video, I guess I don’t have a choice.”

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“So, what are we gonna do with her?” Arlon asks.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to stay with you guys,” Meta says, looking over at the Helix crew. “I wouldn’t mind helping you take down I and getting a little payback.”

“Well, then welcome aboard,” Shane tells her, extending his hand.

Session Notes: Well that certainly was a crazy way to start off this session! When I was writing up the previous chapter for the end of the last session, when I got to the part when Meta talked to Minerva it occurred to me that Meta probably did something to Minerva, and boy was I right. At least we got her stabilized and had her rushed off to the hospital for treatment! Although, Alliance hospitals will charge an arm and a leg…

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Then it was on to the chase on Harmonia! Between sessions, because of what I wrote in the third part of Seeing Red, we established that Harmonia was in fact the planet we ended up at, which meant the Red Suns could lend a hand! It was really fun to play as Arlon again for a little bit, especially now that his Zweilous evolved into a ridiculously good Hydreigon. And I got to test out his 1.05 build a bit! I legitimately almost killed Meta’s Magnezone because it had 5 HP left when I hit it with Heat Wave, which I had modified using Arlon’s Rider class to deal extra damage based on the difference in speed between the two Pokemon, and it was a pretty big difference. It was just awesome!

Putting a bomb in Meta’s head was a way for DragonStrom to make some players maybe a bit more sympathetic toward Meta to maybe make people choose her over H. It certainly worked for Alex, since that kind of shit is like one of her biggest fears. Yet, somehow we managed to pick secret option C and save everyone! I went into that session fully expecting to have Arlon kill H, but the way things played out, there wasn’t a good reason for that to happen.

Surprise brain surgery was fun! It was a really neat way to mix up the Spacemon formula! It was a bit dicey at times. H’s played passed the skill check DC to disarm the final trigger by 1! In the end, we managed to save Meta, and now we have her on board the Helix as a backup character just in case someone dies. Although, H’s player and The Other Guy might do some RP as her from time to time, like I do with Arlon.

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There’s still a bit more to this session that will be covered in the next chapter! I do want to say that, before you read the next chapter, be sure to read Alex’s backstory (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), especially the third part, and the first three parts of Seeing Red (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). Also be sure to check out the fourth installment of Seeing Red if you haven’t yet.

That does it for this chapter. As always the Spacemon gang and I will be monitoring the comments to foster discussion and answer any questions. Feel free to give feedback and critiques of the writing so I can improve it for the future, or just leave a comment with what you think about what went down in this chapter or what you think might happen next! You can also revisit past chapters, check out the Spacemon Appendix which is a repository of information on all the lore and characters of Spacemon, or like our Facebook page to stay updated on all things Spacemon! Click here for the next exciting installment of Spacemon!